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This is the first in a series of several articles reflecting upon the Sacrament of Baptism.
We are approaching the season of Lent, a time set aside by the Church to help us prepare for Easter.
For many, this season is seen as a time that we “give something up.” While offering ourselves to God always is important, the Church primarily views Lent through the lens of Baptism. In fact, here is what the Church says about Lent:
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Question: “I expect so much of myself each New Year. How do I make my resolutions last?”
Response:William McKenna, M.S., Clinical Extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services
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Pope Francis has declared this year as the Year of Consecrated Life and you will see from his letter that he has several objectives for this year.
Among them being: thanksgiving for all the Lord has accomplished through the various Religious communities, a greater fidelity to the mission established by the founders and foundresses, and embracing the future with hope.
The Diocese of Madison is looking to assist the Holy Father with these objectives by engaging the priests, Religious, and laity in various events and activities throughout the year.
We are inviting our consecrated men and women to use this year as an opportunity to highlight the many graces received through the living out of their community’s charisms throughout the history of the diocese.
We also look forward to opportunities to joining the various Religious communities in their prayer which is crucial to their identity.
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One of the most theologically fascinating and entertaining books I’ve read in a long time is Yves Congar’s My Journal of the Council.
Most Catholics under age 50 might be unaware of the massive contribution made by Congar, a Dominican priest and one of the most important Catholic theologians of the 20th century.
After a tumultuous intellectual career, Congar found himself, at age 58, a peritus or theological expert at the Second Vatican Council. By most accounts, he proved the most influential theologian at that epic gathering, contributing to the documents on the Church, on ecumenism, on revelation, and on the Church’s relation to the modern world.
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What a sight! Over 25 times from the top of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., I have seen a sea of people marching to proclaim the dignity of unborn human life and how death-dealing abortion sends the unholy message that some human beings are disposable.
As I write, I plan to march with and view that sea of people once again during the 42nd annual March for Life on January 22. It’s always a moral and spiritual shot-in-the-arm for me.
But good as they are, the Washington March for Life and the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, as well as dozens of similar events at state capitols throughout the U.S., are simply not enough.
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60 Minutes, the CBS News “magazine” that helped redefine television journalism, prides itself on challenging conventional wisdom, discomfiting the comfortable, kicking shibboleths in the shins, and opening new arguments.
No such challenge, alas, was evident in the program’s recent segment on Pope Francis.
One of the principal interviewees in that piece was Robert Mickens, formerly of the London-based Tablet and currently of the National Catholic Reporter. Here’s a part of what Mickens had to say about the “Francis effect”:
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One of the commonest complaints against Catholicism is that it is the religion of “no,” especially in regard to the sexual dimension of life.
As the rest of the culture is moving in a progressively more permissive direction, the Church seems to represent a crabbed, puritanical negativity toward sexuality.
I think it is important, first, to make a distinction between two modalities of “no.” On the one hand, there is “no” pure and simple — a denial, a negation of something good.
Editor’s note: During this Year of Consecrated Life, this is the first in a series based on the Second Vatican Council’s document, Perfectae Caritatis (Decree on the Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life) written by Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, former abbot primate of the Benedictine order who now resides in Madison.
Pope Francis has declared this year as one to be dedicated to the Life of Religious Consecration.
This is not a one-sided emphasis, since this is also the year of the Synod of Bishops which will be dedicated to the discussion of married life. It is important to see both ways of life as at the heart of the whole Church’s life and calling to witness Jesus.
Advocating for the Catholic Conference requires us to articulate the principles of Catholic social teaching in what a lawyer-friend of mine likes to call the “jury English” of everyday conversation.
Relating the Principle of Solidarity to current policy issues is one example of this.
The Principle of Solidarity flows from the truth that human beings created in the image of a Triune God are social by nature. As a result, “we are all in this together.”
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From the 1950s through the late 1970s, Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II) was a professor of moral philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland, specializing in sexual ethics and what we call today “marriage and family life.”
He produced two important books touching on these matters, The Acting Person, a rigorous philosophical exploration of Christian anthropology, and Love and Responsibility, a much more accessible analysis of love, sex, and marriage.
These texts provided the foundation for the richly textured teaching of St. John Paul II that now goes by the name “theology of the body.”
